FLORA und ihre Bilder

A dance theatre performance by Cie. GangWERK (CH) and Fanerose (B) in co-production with the Theater am Gleis in Winterthur.

The performance is inspired by the Villa Flora Museum in Winterthur (close to Zurich), a house where the Hahnloser family lived for generations alongside collected artworks by masters such as Bonnard, Van Gogh and Vallotton.

Before the Villa became a museum, the Hahnloser family lived for generations alongside artwork by masters such as Bonnard, Van Gogh and Vallotton. Members of the family and the paintings inevitably influenced each other.

The museum has been temporarily closed since April 2014 due to local cultural politics. The art is no longer present; desolation and loneliness rule over the house.

The removal of these paintings erodes the world the residents grew up in, symbolizing at the same time a more fundamental issue: What happens when our collective cultural inheritance disappears? When materialism takes over humanity?

In a place where all familiarity and humanity has disappeared, three actors try to find a way to function again. They try to get a grip on the smallest things around them, starting with their own body and language, reinventing lost values and meanings. But how can this be done in a volatile medium such as theatre?

The raw and personal body language of the performers in FLORA underlines a recurring theme in the work of Evelyne Verhellen: how people literally and figuratively force themselves into new shapes when they are not able to conform to dictated standards.